Otaku come in many flavors, but one thing can be said for each and every one of them. They've each staked out their own favorite thing, and they obsess over it relentlessly. Regardless of other intelligence, an otaku will have an obsessive, unhealthy, and almost encyclopedic knowledge of their chosen topic.

There are almost as many flavors of this type of character as there are things under the sun, but a few of the major ones are:

Anime or Manga Otaku (which is what most people think of when they hear the term "otaku")

Essentially, someone could be an otaku about just about anything: politics, sports, history, etc. When otaku is used by itself by a Westerner, 99% of the time it will mean "anime/manga otaku".

Neither geek nor nerd is an adequate translation. However, in modern use, both words may carry a shadow of the right connotations of obsessive interest and/or social ineptitude; see the geek and nerd pages for details. Think of the older, more pejorative senses of geek and you're on the right track. The British term anorak and the American term wonk are also close translations, and in more dickish corners of The Internet, autism-related terms like aspie get slung around in a similar manner. The closest troper-speak cognate would be "Loony Fan." In Japan, the term Otaku does not carry a positive meaning, at all. One of the first things most Japanese language classes often have to teach people is that calling yourself an Otaku in Japan is a very bad thing.

A related term is hikikomori, which refers to a teenager or young adult who withdraws completely from society for an extended period, typically isolating themselves within their parents' house and become psychologically fixated to particular hobbies; hikikomori in media are usually otaku of some sort. Hikikomori are also critically viewed as lazy and outright creepy, which doesn't help the perception of otaku much - especially after 1989, when serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki was shown to be both an otaku and hikikomori, leading to a moral panic.

The term itself comes from the very polite form of "you", which can come off as socially awkward. The best guess as to how the term became associated with obsessive fandom is that the word was an inside joke among the production staff of the anime series Super Dimension Fortress Macross in 1982, and that they would have characters (notably Lynn Minmay) use the over-polite form of address, even when inappropriate. Fans picked it up and used it in conversation between each other even well past the point when they would use other forms of "you", such as "kimi" or "Anata" or "omae". A writer for a Japanese magazine noted the meme and wrote an article that cemented the term as being used for obsessive fans.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

Graham Aker from Gundam 00 is a Japanese culture fanboy. A VERY Badass Japanese fanboy who manages to avoid being an Occidental Otaku if only by virtue of the fact he is totally serious about his passion and has hardly any traits of the Occidental version aside from the fanaticism.

Staz, the main protagonist from Blood Lad is a Vampire of Royal Lineage, ruler of a portion of Makai, and a self-confessed Otaku who loves human entertainment, particularly Anime and Manga, and is a proud Dragon Ball Z fanboy who idolizes Goku.

Sergeant Sousuke Sagara, from Full Metal Panic!!, is described as a military otaku by Kaname before she finds out he's actually military. Shinji Kazama is however a straight-up version of the trope, specifically a military AS fan. However, Sousuke is still a military nut even though he's actually a soldier, due to the fact he's a clueless moron about anythin NON military and thinks of everything from a soldier's POV.

All-around badass Belfangan Clouseau's guilty pleasure is moe anime. During the climax of the story, he monologues about how he's going to survive so that he can retire, move to Akihabara, and spend the rest of his life translating said anime so that everyone can enjoy it.

Sgt. Keroro, the alien frog protagonist of Keroro Gunsou, is a Gundam otaku. It's one of the reasons why he doesn't blow up the Earth when he gets the oppurtunity to do so.

Kaoru's two male friends in Ai Yori Aoshi are a cosplay otaku and metrophile, respectively.

Midori no Hibi: Takamizawa is a fanatic when it comes to cosplay figures and has an entire showroom, which includes everything from limited edition models, to one-of-a-kind originals. It's just missing one thing: Midori, herself. But since he's unable to add her to his collection (for obvious reasons), he does the next best thing, by making a perfect likeness of her in the form of a hand puppet.

Noa is a huge fan of Labors, which is the reason she signed up for duty with the newly formed second Special Vehicles Unit - in hopes of being able to pilot one of her very own. She had even chosen the name "Alphonse" for it, before ever being accepted as part of the division. So, for her, being a Labor pilot is literally her dream job.

The same can be said in regard to Shige. The difference being, whereas Noa wants to pilot Labors, Shige is a gearhead who wants to study them in order to better understand how they work, so he can optimize their efficiency. Which is why he became a mechanic at the SVU.

During the "dinosaur" episode of Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai, Sasshi is briefly depicted as the ultimate negative Japanese stereotype of the otaku: solitary, overweight, bad complexion, and with the implication of poor hygiene, body odor, and paraphilia. (See image above.)

Paranoia Agent features an otaku who patronizes hookers that play to his cosplay fetish. (As in, he pays the hookers for sex, not treat them in a condescending manner.) It turns out to be a plot point later on.

Rozen Maiden: Traumend features Micchan, a double rarity: a female otaku who isn't a Cosplay Otaku Girl, and who seems to have a "real" job as a corporate executive. The protagonist of the show is not only an occult otaku but obviously a hikikomori, although this isn't said outright.

It's more insane than that. When she first saw a photo of one of the members (he bore a very close resemblance to her favorite character), she instantly declared she was going to marry him and transfered to the school. Keep in mind the school is in Japan and she lived in Paris.

Patricia Martin is a parody of the typical American weeaboo, knowing nothing about Japan and its culture besides what she learned from anime, manga and yaoi. She learned most of her Japanese from subbed anime, only listens to Japanese bands whose songs have been used as anime themes, and believes Akihabara is a more important cultural landmark than anything else in Japan. Needless to say, she's way geekier than even Konata.

Yamazaki Kaoru from Welcome to the N.H.K.. Although he comes off as slightly less severe then some of the other characters, he's treated with the same humorous objective criticism as everyone else.

In the anime version of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, the serious and sensible Rina is given a rather ridiculous vice: she's a plasma TV otaku. This is used without fail to allow the writers to dangle a TV in front of her and ignore any situation where she would take the Idiot Ball from her friends and punt it somewhere else with her good sense.

The main protagonist of Kekkaishi is a cake otaku. Another person lampshades this. This is made funnier when his feelings for an older childhood friend and briefly gaining a Stalker with a Crush of similar age to said childhood friend has given him a reputation for being fond of older women, which other characters have also pointed out.

Nagi from Hayate the Combat Butler is a manga otaku, and has been drawing her own ever since she was six years old. She's also a Gamer Chick. Gotta do something with all those hours inside, right?

Wataru (a.k.a. "Waka") works as a clerk in a video store, giving him plenty of opportunities to indulge in his hobby of action anime.

It's arguable that Hayate himself is one, seeing as he's been in many positions that other otaku would kill for. And the fact that he redrew Nagi's manga chapter into one that would appeal to many otaku. Then again, he might just be too dense to be one.

Gym teacher Kaoru is given his own chapter, titled "Lost in the Path of the Otaku". He is a Gundam otaku, his room filled to overflowing with Gundam models (he built them himself), but the main focus of his character isn't about this part of his life.

Kotetsu is shown to be this way over trains, his fascination with them is used to put the 'dark side' of Japan's outlook to a lampshade when two girls, who previously were discussing how Bishōnen his looks are, are visibly squicked when the camera he's pulling out of his bag is used to take pictures of the trains going by, and quickly leave.

Tama and Rin in Bamboo Blade are also toku fans, and eventually become Promoted Fangirls when they get a chance to go on the set of the Blade Braver movie.

Fuu from Magic Knight Rayearth loves video games (specifically RPGs), and uses terms such as "experience points" and "treasure" when she and the other girls receive their first mission from Presea.

Codename: Sailor V (the manga that would eventually give birth to Sailor Moon) actually has a one off character called Takurou Ootaku, whose name is a pun roughly meaning "wandering otaku". He's a Game Otaku who refuses to believe a girl could be better at games than he is. He flips out at the idea of Minako even going to an arcade (which he considers a "castle for lonely boys") and accuses Minako of being a man in drag when she beats his highscore. He even demands she take off her clothes. When she tries to fight him as Sailor V he tries to look up her skirt, so she kicks him.

The titular character of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu. Being an infamous Ojou, she had to hide the fact that she's also an Anime Otaku, otherwise people will look down on her... and then the male protagonist caught her red-handed and she became completely scared that he'd use that knowledge to that advantage (turns out he didn't). This is an in-anime example where people do look down on anime Otaku, if it gets blown out of proportion... like the male protagonist's best friend, whose otakuness is shown right off bat.

Eitarou, Professor Stein and Agaliarept in Macademi Wasshoi are all otaku in the purest sense of the word. Except they're also all powerful mages, mad scientists and hold positions of at least some power at the Magician's Academy. When magic and fandom combine, all that can be said is Hilarity Ensues.

Dragon Ball G.T. features a deceptive cult leader, Dolltakkii, who is creepily obsessed with dolls, even turning girls into dolls for him to coo over, and his cult revolves around bringing a giant killer doll to life by sacrificing his followers. His very name is even a pun on the term doll otaku.

Japan from Axis Powers Hetalia is an anime and games otaku; he has stated he prefers 2D to 3D and is a direct parody to Japan's (the country) otaku culture.

France ofallpeople seems to be one for manga as well. He's shown shopping for manga with Japan in one strip, mentally compared Germany to Light in another and was in one live event told by Japan that if he doesn't behave, he wouldn't let him have any more manga. Justified Trope since France imports more manga than any other nation.

Chiaki from Niea_7 loves investigating UFOs, and it's just her luck that aliens have landed on earth. It also makes her bond with Niea very well.

Hiroshi Akiba of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs is stated by the manga to be a pop-idol otaku turned dog otaku. He knows more about dogs than the title character.

Keima Katsuragi, the protagonist of The World God Only Knows, is a dedicated dating sim otaku who gets recruited to help capture runaway spirits. He's not generally well-liked by his fellow students - which is fine with him, because he doesn't like engaging with them.

His sidekick Elsee is an otaku too, although she's rather quieter about it than Keima. Unusually for the trope, she has two specialities: Idol Singer Kanon Nakagawa... and fire trucks.

Tenpou from Saiyuki Gaiden was described by the author once as "fundamentally an otaku"...of many things presumably, given the extent of his library (has a bit of everything, not sure on his definition of a bit) and art/sculpture/weird things from the lower world collection.

Tsutomo Sasaki from Domu: A Child's Dream failed to get into college for three consecutive years because he spends all of his time building model airplanes.

Walker and Erika on Durarara!! are big anime/manga otaku who don't really distinguish between fiction and reality; in fact, they fit the negative stereotype that otaku are psychotic, although they're still basically "the good guys".

Emerging: Mori, the office manager for the Department of Virology in the National Institute for Infectious Diseases, is an otaku for, of all things, deadly viruses. Especially Ebola.

Most of the cast of Kuragehime are otaku of some variety (jellyfish, dolls, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, etc). Of particular note are Kuranosuke and Hanamori, who are more-or-less obsessed with dresses and Benzes, yet avoid most of the other negative stereotypes and are generally not lumped in with the other otaku.

In a filler case, Shinichi/Conan investigates a murder that took place in a gathering of tokusatsu fans. The victim hits many, if not all the stereotypes of the "bad" otaku: obsessive, a borderline hikikomori, bitchy, lives in an apartment that's chock-full of memorabilia, etc. It turns out that his most valuable merchandising piece was stolen from a kid... who later was hit by a truck while trying to retrieve it. And the boy's older brother, the leader of the fans club, is who killed the otaku, to punish him for the horrible incident.

Officer Chiba is a milder example. He's often seen reading a manga about a pretty girl detective and it's strongly suggested by Takagi that his room is FULL of character figurines and models. When we do get to see his flat, almost every exposed surface in the living room has figurines or other merchandise, but Conan finds it excessive rather than creepy. Chiba's collections seem to be mostly superhero and kaiju related, and naturally, the Detective Kids love it.

In the fillerSéance Locked Murders case, one of the suspects is an otaku named Yutaka, the president of a deceased Idol Singer's fans club. He at first seems to treat the deal as a game, and when a fellow fangirl is found strangled to death he happily and melodrmatically claims that the singer's spirit has come to take revenge for her own strange death.

In Bokurano, Maki Anou and her father are milder examples. They both love anime and military stuff, but they dearly love each other and Maki manages to bond with her fellow Pilots as well, specially Takami and Kana.

In Tonari no Kashiwagi-san Sayaka and Kazuki aren't otakus, which is the fastest way of describing how prevalent the character type is there. This makes it easier for several of them to form friendships. It's mostly about watching anime and reading manga, with one character being an artist.

Gonna be the Twin-Tail!! has a an entire set of antagonists who are basically this. The Ultimaguil, who are one part extra-dimensional invader, one-part Emotion Eater, one part Dirty Old Man, and lots of helpings of Otaku. Heck, each has their own native "fetish", from twintails, to bloomers, to little girls holding dolls...

Tomoya, Eriri, and Utaha of Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata are all otaku to a large degree. Tomoya is very open about it, Utaha doesn't bring it up, and Eriri tries to hide that aspect of her from the public.

The majority of the cast of Don't Become an Otaku, Shinozaki-san! are otaku. The series is notable in that otaku are generally shown in a more positive light. The only character shown with any real prejudice toward otaku is Akina Shinozaki herself, who's faking being an otaku to get close to a girl and introduce her to normal hobbies but ends up Becoming the Mask. Perhaps best demonstrated in a sports day chapter where her classmates, at worst, regard her as a Bunny-Ears Lawyer when her growing otaku-dom slips out during a soccer game. They don't particularly mind her doing things like calling them by "PrePure" colors, since she's carrying the team at that point.

In Tate No Yuusha No Nariagari the four Legendary Heroes are all Japanese otaku, as were previous generations of Legendary Heroes. The reincarnated pawns of Medea are also otaku, but notably less sane.

Film

Kung Fu Panda has a rather hilarious take on the otaku phenomenon, with Po as a Furious Five enthusiast. Not only does he know all the tales of their exploits, recognize each sacred or amazing artifact in the temple with ecstatic glee, and pour out gushing praise of Crane in his bedchamber to the point he hovers outside the door waiting for the master to speak again, but he confesses to them that he has all their action figures—which of course are much smaller than the real thing, except Mantis who is "the same size." The fact he is chosen to learn kung fu at their side and becomes the Designated Hero is probably an example of an Ascended Fanboy as well—the artifact-examining scene certainly smacks of it.

The title character in Muriel's Wedding is a hard-core marriage otaku, who makes it a point to go to every dress boutique in Sydney with fake stories about comatose family members to score pictures of herself in various wedding dresses.

Literature

In the Discworld novel Going Postal, Apprentice Postman Stanley Howler is an obsessive pin collector, to the point (no pun intended) that all the other collectors in Ankh-Morpork think he's "a little weird about pins". After the main character invents postage stamps, Stanley takes up stamp collecting... with pretty much the same obsessiveness he had for pins.

Don Quixote makes this Older Than Steam. Even before he goes crazy enough to actually try to become a knight, he's arguing with his friends over which knights are the strongest, overthinking all the technical aspects of the chivalry stories, and even being tempted to write Fan Fiction of one of his favorites. Disturbingly similar to some modern-day fandoms...

You can see this quote in Chapter I, Part I:

You must know, then, that the above-named gentleman whenever he was at leisure (which was mostly all the year round) gave himself up to reading books of chivalry with such ardor and avidity that he almost entirely neglected the pursuit of his field-sports, and even the management of his property.

In ''Rolitania, a good portion of the population in the titular country are otaku. Their interests vary widely, and they all seem to get along for the most part. It helps that their Queen is an otaku as well.

In World War Z, there is an Otaku of the hikikomori type who is so obsessed with studying the Zombie Apocalypse on the Internet that he doesn't treat it as something to worry about until it reaches his apartment building, stuck with useless information and trapped in a very zombie-friendly Japan. He manages to survive, finds a genuine katana from a WW2 veteran's flat, and takes a level in badass.

And then he gets trained by a blind swordsman, and gains a couple thousand more levels in badass.

Kamen Rider Fourze uses the term several times, in reference to female lead Yuki Jojima (an outer space and rocketry fangirl) and Goth girl Tomoko Nozama (a fangirl of insects and the urban legend of the Kamen Rider).

Music

Dempagumi.inc, a Japanese idol group, is said to be made up of ex-otaku, with each member having their own otaku "specialisation". Whether this is true or just a marketing ploy is unclear, but it is worth noting that all the members were employed at the well known "Dear Stage", an otaku hangout, in Akihabara, Tokyo's well-known otaku district.

Kaph from Luminous Arc 2 is the editor of a magazine about Witches and, well, pretty much loves being in the party with all the Witches around for him to create his art and took pictures of. Hell, his class is W-Otaku!

A sidestory from Final Fantasy Tactics A2 states that Horne is an item maniac (in Japanese, in English, he's referred as an item aficionado).

An unusually sympathetic and well-lampshaded example is Otacon from Metal Gear. His nickname, of course, is derived from Otakon, the Otaku Convention. The first lines he says to the main character, Snake, are a very melancholy invocation of the trope, and sets him up for some very unusual and well-played parallels between the loneliness of a reclusive soldier and the loneliness of a reclusive otaku -

Otacon: Are you one of them? Snake: Not me. I always work alone. Otacon: Alone? Are you an otaku too?

Otacon: In North America, R.O.B.'s body was grey, like the NES. But in Japan, he had a white body and red arms, the color of the Japanese Famicom. Snake: Huh. You sure know your geeky tech stuff, Otacon. Otacon:(chuckles) Well, you know...

Travis is an interesting, rare breed of a western otaku created by a Japanese maniacdeveloper. He's surprisingly spot on.

Flonne from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is a huge Toku and anime otaku — Enough that she can be bribed into beating the crap out of people with the promise of a Super Sentai DVD box set. One of her super attacks in Disgaea 2 is called "Flonnezilla", which turns her into a cute fire-breathing, plushie-monster-wearing terror. She also has a similar attack as a secret character in Makai Kingdom.

Almaz in Disgaea 3 is also an otaku, but focused completely on heroes. Mao is a closet hero otaku as well (he refuses to admit it).

Francis from Super Paper Mario is a giant chameleon who kidnaps Tippi in order to take pictures of her with his new "high-technical" camera, stockpiles video games and anime, and is overall a geek of the highest order.

He also has an army of robot cat maids.

In Rockman.EXE, Higure/Higsby is described as a "Battle Chip Otaku". Considering his obsession with the things, it's not hard to see why.

In Touhou, The shrine maiden Sanae Kochiya, though we don't hear about it until the fighting games - she's excited to track down Hisentoku, which is essentially a magitek mech, because she loves giant robot anime.

Ashton Anchors from Star Ocean: The Second Story is a barrel otaku. In the anime version, Star Ocean EX, he is able to identify not only the year and location any barrel was made, but what it's been used for, on sight.

Raine from Tales of Symphonia is utterly obsessed with ancient ruins, though the game hints that that may be a result of her tragic backstory.

Hubert from Tales of Graces is one. It's implied that a couple of his moves - including the staple series attack, Tiger Blade - were ones he taught himself from comic books. And then, of course, there's his transparently closeted obsession with the sunscreen rangers:

The Pokemaniac trainer class in the main series Pokémon games. There are also Poke Fans, which perhaps kind of borderline it. They carry around Poke dolls along with their Pokemon, and the maniacs are always in Pokemon costumes. And many do wear glasses.

Visual Novels

Kaine in A Profile is an anime and dating sim otaku, and quite open about it. Despite this, he's even more popular than the main character.

Takumi Nishijō, the protagonist from Chaos;Head, is a hikikomori and a massive otaku (Dolls, Anime, and Gamer) to the point of spending all of his time in his room (a cargo container on the roof of a building) and vastly preferring the company of his anime-based dolls to any real girls; this preference exhibits itself most strongly (besides his constant exclamations to that effect) by him dreaming/hallucinating about his favorite doll being real, alive and talking to him in virtually every episode (as well as being married to him, iirc). Ironically enough, it turns out that Takumi himself is a hallucination-made-real, answering the age-old question, "Can dreams dream?" with a very emphatic "Yes." Evidently, the trouble is getting them to stop.

Daru from Steins;Gate frequently uses terms such as "waifu" and "tsundere." In the English dub of the anime, he uses catchphrases such as "unreadable code is unreadable" and talks about his 2-D harem. Throughout the anime, he can be seen playing visual novels and eroge.

Hifumi Yamada from Danganronpa is the Super High School Level Doujin Writer (or Fanboy, in some translations). He's a fat teenaged artist whose work sells in the tens of thousands, disavows any interest in 3D women and aims to become a famous sculptor (of anime figures, of course). His dialogues are liberally peppered with references to anime and video games.

Sal Manella from the game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a stereotypical otaku, whose Japanese name is Uzai Takuya which literally translates into "annoying otaku".

The Powerpuff Girls episode "Collect Her" features a negative example in the from of Lenny Baxter, a fan who spent much of his spare time collecting Powerpuff memorabilia. When Lenny finds out he has obtained every known piece of merchandise, he goes insane at the prospect of not being able to add more items to his collection, leading him to steal the girls' personal belongings and, eventually, kidnapping the girls themselves.

Interestingly, there's a minor character on The Legend of Korra whose name is Otaku, due to his great love of Air Nomad culture.

Real Life

Perri Rhoades, the author of SpectralShadows was an Otaku at one point in their lives. This can be seen by visiting years older submissions on their Live Journal page.

Shoko Nakagawa, famous blogger, cosplayer, and TV personality in Japan. You may know her for singing the opening and insert song for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

"Seito Sakakibara" (his real identity is sealed) was a fourteen-year old Serial Killer and otaku. In his late twenties today, he's most famous for decapitating a mentally handicapped ten year-old and spiking the child's head to his school gate. "Sakakibara" contributed a lot to the moral panic that otaku were mentally unhealthy.

Tsutomu Miyazaki, also known as the Otaku Killer, was a Serial Killer and an anime and horror film otaku who preyed on little girls. There's a lot of debate on whether or not he liked anime at all. The horror movie collection is true, though.

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